Why is Microsoft helping to repress the Chinese people?

Microsoft helps the Chinese government supress freedom of speech.

Chinese Censors Scold Internet Users Who Input Taboo Words, Like 'Freedom' and 'Human Rights'

SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- Chinese bloggers, even on foreign-sponsored sites, had better choose their words carefully -- the censors are watching.

Users of the MSN Spaces section of Microsoft Corp.'s new China-based Web portal get a scolding message each time they input words deemed taboo by the communist authorities -- such as democracy, freedom and human rights.

I think MS should not be cooperating with this obvious attack on basic human rights, benefits of trading in China be damned. This kind of cooperation with censorship and repression is unconscionable. Especially since China has a history of stealing our technology (or having it handed to them by certain unnamed presidents).

It has always bothered me that American companies trade in China, where peoples' rights are so disregarded. The Chinese government still imprisons people for saying the "wrong" things, forces people into labor, confiscates personal property and, when it feels it's necessary, kills its own people. It doesn't deserve the technology and consequent freedom Microsoft brings, and morally, Microsoft shouldn't give it to them. The Chinese government needs to understand that the benefits of capitalism shouldn't come to a government that has no concept of freedom.

As to the censorship of it's MSN Spaces web site based on the rules of a foreign government, Microsoft should be ashamed. And Microsoft should just say "Hell no." If this technology is important to the Chinese people and/or its government, it comes without restrictions, especially restrictions that are a clear violation of our sacred values.

I am a capitalist, but this is worse than a sell-out. It's anti-American. And I never thought I'd say this about a company I respect for so many other reasons.